The COVID-19 pandemic is offering Nigeria an opportunity to restrategise and rebuild the agriculture sector to meet the country’s food security needs, even though food production and the supply chain in the country have been severely hit by the pandemic.
While government rhetoric over the years has suggested substantial attention and resources are being committed to agricultural development, it appears there has been a lack of coordination in driving agricultural programmes and policies, making it difficult to accurately measure whether or not the sector is indeed growing relative to all the rhetoric.
These were some of the critical points made by panellists during a session on ‘Agricultural credit and national food security in an economic downturn’ at the BusinessDay digital dialogue, Wednesday.
“We have never been serious to face the issue of food security. We are 200 million people and when we talk about food security, it is not just about what we have to consume but what we have in case of any crisis,” said Sanni Dangote, vice president, Dangote Group.
The issue of food security, he said, is a reality the country has to come to realise with the pandemic and one the country has not faced squarely.
“If you look at the whole cry about rice production, there is no statistic to show how much was produced last year, previous years or even the coming year. What is our plan?” Dangote asked.
“If we look at the Ministry of Agriculture, what are they planning for the next year or even for this year? What is the Ministry of Water’s plan for the reservoirs and the dams? The Ministry of Agriculture is completely disconnected from the Ministry of Water Resources,” he said.
He further lamented the lack of data required for planning in the country.
“There is no proper statistic to show the smallholder farmers we are working with through different intervention programmes with the CBN,” he said.
The pandemic has brought to the fore many of the existing structural challenges, and now requiring the country takes it as an opportunity to fix the inadequacies across the value chain in order to meet food security needs, support raw material needs for industries, and earn foreign exchange for the country through exports.
Describing the impact of COVID-19 on agriculture in Nigeria, Ndidi Nwuneli, managing partner, Sahel Consulting Agriculture & Nutrition Ltd, said “the ecosystem was already fragile before COVID-19 hit” but the outbreak has worsened the condition.
Before COVID-19 hit, there were already challenges around productivity, infrastructure, post-harvest losses, etc. However, through the lockdowns, restrictions in movements, disruptions to supply chain and trade as well as challenges in transporting inputs to farmers and farmers transporting produce to markets, the pandemic further weakened the agricultural ecosystem in Nigeria.
“COVID-19 presents us with a wonderful opportunity to re-imagine, retool and rebuild. It is painful, but we have to create an ecosystem that is strong and Nigeria has to commit to feeding itself and the rest of Africa,” said Nwuneli.
In 1980, Thailand and Nigeria had the same per capita GDP, but today Thailand has a GDP four times that of Nigeria and has one of the lowest unemployment rates on the planet, about 0.7 percent unemployment rate, while Nigeria is on track to have 25-57 percent unemployment rate, according to Kola Masha, CEO/founder, Babban Gona.
Models adopted for agricultural development in Asian countries such as Thailand, he reckoned, can also help Nigeria in improving the productivity and profitability of farmers. As part of a strategic process, the country devalued its currency to enable farmers to be competitive on the global market so they could start exporting significant volumes of commodities. Today, he said, the country has become a major manufacturing hub itself and Nigeria can learn from it.
Aliyu Abdulhameed, managing director, NIRSAL plc, also buttressed the point about adopting models that have worked in other countries and adopting them to scale productivity in Nigeria.
“With all the efforts that we are making, bank lending to agriculture accounts for 4.4 percent as at Q4 2019,” said Abdulhameed. Eighty percent of the population is involved in agriculture, and it contributes 23 percent to GDP.
He reiterated that now is the time for Nigeria to ramp up food production and build up strategic grains reserve.
“Other countries are keeping their food, nobody will sell food to you at any scale and even if you have, where are the dollars since oil price is low?” he asked.
Boye Olusanya, Group COO, Flour Mills of Nigeria plc, identified the need for a structured and developed ecosystem that supports the entire agricultural value chain in Nigeria, as a way to improve productivity.
According to him, one of the implications of the lack of structure and processes as it pertains to agriculture in Nigeria is that while there has been an increase in area under cultivation, there has been decrease in yield.
“We have been putting a lot of people to farm, but making them poorer which is the biggest disincentive for anyone going into farming,” he said.
The pandemic, the panellists noted, is presenting an opportunity to rebuild the country’s agriculture landscape through private and public sector collaborations, while also ensuring there is credible data regarding food production and markets.
